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The tariffs imposed by President Trump went into effect last week, and the American retail scene—and your closet—will undoubtedly be impacted.
But what does that mean for American-made brands, who these measures are ostensibly meant to benefit? While the vast majority of apparel is imported into the US, there are still some brands who produce their goods stateside. If gettingjeans from Japan andjackets from Canada suddenly becomes way more expensive, will the brands that have never left the 50 states be more affordable? And will they find their business booming in the aftermath?GQspoke with some founders of American-made brands—Jason Hurwitz of American Trench, Ted De Innocentis of 1620 Workwear, Cameron Weiss of Weiss Watch Company, and Bayard Winthrop of American Giant—to get their takes on the tariff situation.
“The core premise remains the same,” Winthrop said. “Make great stuff, and make it here.” But the overarching feeling from the business owners, and the fashion world as a whole, is frazzled. Weiss said, “I do not think there is a silver lining to the tariffs; it is just another challenge for hardworking people all over the world to adapt to a change in the market.” Meanwhile, Hurwitz picked up the phone and delivered an opening statement that set an unmistakable tone: “You can quote me: holy fucking shit.”
“For some of my friends in this business that do made in America, they are going to thrive like they never have before,” Hurwitz acknowledged. “I’m happy for them, because they’re doing super hard things that need to be done. But for my own business and some of my other friends, our key inputs all come from overseas.”
Those inputs—fabrics, say, or yarn—are Hurwitz’s second-largest expense, after labor. American Trench makes its socks (the company’s calling card) at family-owned mills in North Carolina, while its hats are made in New Jersey and Texas, with other clothing items made in Los Angeles, New York, and Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania.
While he’s been in the fashion game for over a decade now, Hurwitz worked in finance during the 2008 economic crisis and remembers being "appalled, shocked, and saddened” by the events that triggered the Great Recession.
With that in mind, he broke down the implications for his business. “I make all of my products here. Every single one,” he said. However, it’s not so simple: even if they’re made in America, the raw materials are shipped in from elsewhere, and will now be slapped with heavy tariffs.
“Is a luxury cotton yarn spinner going to suddenly uproot from Italy and move to the United States because of a 35% tariff?” Hurwitz continued. “Of course not. Cashmere is going to be more expensive for anyone, which might actually be good, because the environmental impacts on the steppelands of Mongolia is not a nice thought.”
Hurwitz points to the country’s collective shift away from American manufacturing in the first place as one of the things that precipitated a nationwide downfall. “There's dignity in manufacturing, and that dignity helped create our society,” he offered. “We decided, at some point, to throw it away. I really felt that we stopped doing what made us a great society and helped us help the world. It really bothered me.”
For Weiss Watch Company, which requires several intricate watch components that are made across the pond, things are also going to get more difficult. “The American government instantly made all American resources significantly scarcer,” Weiss lamented. “This means increased inflation to balance out the demand. American manufacturing has a capacity constraint problem and a lack of knowledge problem that make our supply and output very inelastic. The only machines that are capable of machining precise watch parts are not made in the US. Luckily, we have purchased these, but the cost was already pretty steep before these new tariffs.”
And let’s say the American clothing market really does become centralized in America—that is, the only garments available for a reasonable price are the ones sourced, woven, and sold in the US—does the country even have the infrastructure to support it?
Hurwitz, emphatically, does not think so. “The idea that the underlying supply chain exists entirely in this country is ludicrous,” he said. “There’s not a lot of woven cloth made in this country anymore.” Plus, business questions aside, the state of the country in general is troublesome for Hurwitz. “I’m not sitting in my office with glee like Mr. Burns,” he said. “It’s a little bit horrific.”
De Innocentis, the CEO and co-founder of 1620 Workwear, predicts that, while many customers are loud and proud with their Made in USA workwear, they won’t be as patriotic with their wallets. “What I’ve been saying for the last few years is, everyone says they want to buy ‘made in the USA.’ But nobody wants to pay more for ‘made in the USA,’” De Innocentis told GQ. “In reality, apparel is a commodity. People aren’t willing to pay more for a commodity when it really comes down to it.”
De Innocentis calls himself a realist more than a skeptic, and had previously put in five years working in a textile factory in China. When he returned home to start 1620 Workwear in 2016, he understood that creating workwear in America, for Americans, with entirely American material, would present its challenges, “in, probably, a more difficult manner than what they teach you to do at the Nike, Puma, and Adidas of the world. But we’ve always wanted to create our own path.”
He dismissed the initial wave of tariff news—still, once reality set in, his mind went toward the sunnier side of the situation.
“When it actually felt like [the tariffs] were going to happen, I was a little bit nervous,” he conceded. “But in the long term, this is the best thing that can happen for the made in the USA movement. There has to be some pain first. It’s not an overnight thing. There’s going to be a cycle, and if it does come to fruition, best thing for made in the USA.”
Winthrop, of American Giant, provided some optimism as well, saying that with a bit more planning from the Trump administration, it’s not out of the question for the American supply chain to be revitalized.
“Let’s say it does raise the cost of imports,” he said. “Do you absorb it? Do you look for alternate supply chains internationally, or do you look domestically? If the latter happens, and a company like Lululemon gives 10 to 15% of its t-shirt volume to domestic providers, I think it would inject a jolt of badly-needed volume, commitment, and time for the industry to catch up.”
If reciprocal tariffs end up being implemented on exported goods, both De Innocentis and Hurwitz say they don’t have a robust enough international business for there to be any real financial detriment.
1620 Workwear has no international distributors, but has gained some popularity in places like Canada, Australia, and Scandinavia. “These countries already have pretty strong duties, and we have that advertised on our website,” De Innocentis said. “People importing our pants to Canada are already paying 50%, just because that’s what Canada charges for made in the USA apparel. We’ve already been disadvantaged by the normal tariff system. It’s going to affect us, but thankfully, we’re focused on America. So no, it’s not going to affect our demand or our sales overseas.”
American Giant’s Winthrop laid out the pre-“Liberation Day” tariff situation, saying that if a Chinese retailer made a sweatshirt and sold it in the United States, that arrived on American shores duty-free. “If I try to do that in China, we get nailed. Same for the EU,” he explained. “Today, we probably do 5% of our volume internationally. To the extent that we begin to see more balance, I think it could increase our exports.”
Not everyone is seeing the positives, though. In the watch world, where image is everything, Weiss thinks America will take a PR hit. “Reciprocal tariffs will further diminish our export markets, but much more damaging will be the loss of luster we see in the collective image of American heritage brands,” he declared. “Starting a trade war in this manner might sour other nations and cultures to American products and brands.”
